Blaine had a lot of advantages at Dalton. As a Dean's List student, he was permitted to take advantage of study rooms in the library that he made frequent use of while working on group projects. As a Warbler, he could get away with almost anything, especially by virtue of the fact that he was a charming, well-liked Warbler with a smile and an earnest sincerity about him that made teachers and administrators alike believe anything Blaine wanted to tell them was true. His status put him in a position to earn personal recommendations to prestigious institutions up and down the East Coast, and there was no doubt that if any college admissions department were to call Dalton to inquire about him they would hear nothing but wonderful things about him. But of all the things Blaine enjoyed most about status at such a distinguished institution, it was this:

He loved that he was a senior and had his own room.

It was a stupid thing, it felt petty to even purposefully enjoy it. He also knew that whatever school he attended next year would give him at least one roommate, possibly two. He had never particularly minded the concept of a shared room, either, and save the experience his freshman year with his pungent roommate, he'd had generally positive experiences with the system. He and Wes had gotten along well during sophomore year, and when he ended up with a quiet, bookish non-Warbler his junior year he found he enjoyed the silence even if it did mean spending a lot of time in friends' rooms so he wouldn't disturb anyone.

But there was something about having to be constantly on that got exhausting after awhile. It was a milder form of what he felt so often in his parents' house - the perpetual act of putting on a front so enthusiastically that no one knew it wasn't real. While he much preferred it to the cold, disaffected, distant mask he wore when he left Dalton if only because the act of being so restrained made him feel like he was suffocating, it was no less exhausting to past on a smile and strut confidently through the halls with cheer and warmth even when he wanted to curl in a ball and hide.

Or, as was the case these days, when he wanted to jump up and down and shout from the rooftops how happy he was. How terrified, too, but not-...it was complicated. It wasn't easy to express to himself, certainly not to anyone else even if that might have otherwise been an option (which it wasn't). Maybe if he could find a song, but...in the meantime.

Actually, he wasn't sure such a song existed for something as complex as what he was feeling. He would have to sing two back-to-back and try to meld them somehow if he really wanted something that would adequately express such conflicting, strong emotions.

He was happy. Sort of. Or-...really happy for a moment or two before realizing how scared he was.

He'd accepted that Kurt might be right, that had been huge. He could acknowledge that maybe - just maybe - assertions of his illness were...medically overstated. He was starting to wonder if maybe what made people like him crazy was spending years and years of trying desperately to change and feeling like a horrible failure; that had certainly made him feel crazed, if that was any indication.

And maybe there really were men out there who weren't sick in any way other than their desires and proclivities. Maybe his father really was wrong about the degree of threat that his patients posed to the rest of society. Maybe. He still wasn't sure, but he at least could embrace the idea that he didn't feel like a danger to anyone else. Not as long as Kurt wanted the things that he wanted such that they were both engaged and therefore he wasn't infecting Kurt with some kind of unnatural, undesired urges, at any rate. Not as long as he remembered that hurting that amazing boy was wrong no matter what other desires he had. So maybe he wasn't actually a threat to anyone.

And maybe that meant he really didn't need treatment. Maybe treatment really was like the equivalent of tying a left-handed boy's hand so he would be forced to use his right - he had never really thought of it like that until Kurt said it that night. He remembered people thinking that was normal when he was younger and now it had gone out of favour, so that might be the next step in all of this. He had no idea. But at the very least, he could acknowledge that Kurt might have a point.

But the next step was where he faltered.

Kurt kept saying it didn't matter what people said, but he was wrong. It did matter. Being respected mattered. Being respectable was important - and not just for him. For him, for his father, for his entire family. For the name. For the institution of Dalton - he could only imagine how much damage would be done to the school's reputation if it was discovered that there were secret homosexuals attending. A couple schools in New York had almost gotten shut down over allowing homosexual college students, he knew.

Or, he thought he knew. It had been a story from his father, and if his father was wrong about everything else, Blaine wasn't sure what he was meant to believe anymore.

He didn't want to be-...he knew how his father's patients got looked at. They were either pitied, or looked at with thinly-veiled disgust, or thrown in jail, and he...he didn't want that. He didn't want to be like that. As obnoxious as his father's obsession with image and perfection was, a part of him thought maybe the man had a point. What was so wrong with wanting people to like him? What was so inherently bad about not wanting to be a pariah? Ultimately it didn't matter if it turned out that Kurt was right and his father and everyone else in the world were wrong about whether he was sick or not - the end result would be the same.

But in his room, with Kurt lying beside him on the bed...it didn't feel like that.

Kurt's lips were soft in a way that made him constantly wonder which of the many facial and skin products kept them that way; he never remembered to ask. It was hard to think of much of anything with the fine stubble of Kurt's cheek under his fingertips. The Exciting Connie Francis was playing on the turntable - Kurt had brought it, along with a few other albums, but Blaine thought it would be more appropriate than Peggy Lee's I Like MEN. Last time, on Tuesday, it had been his Johnny Mathis album, which set a much better mood. Even so, he wasn't really going to complain about listening to Time After Time as Kurt scooted forward on his side a few inches and pressed his lips gently against Blaine's.

There were times kissing Kurt felt frantic, desperate, like if he didn't practically devour Kurt's face he might go crazy. Times he sat in rehearsal and stared at Kurt and wanted to whisk him off to his room and slam the door behind them and pull Kurt as close as he could and do everything he still knew he probably shouldn't do. Times he thought maybe he really was going insane because no one should be fixating on someone as much as he fixated on the boy with his pale, luminescent skin and his incredible glasz eyes and the sense of humour no one else seemed to understand the way he did. Times he felt like if he wasn't careful, he would lose himself again and do the kinds of horrible things he'd done before.

This was different.

He'd never given much thought to erotic urges as something gentle before. That wasn't to say he believed everyone was inherently sexually aggressive; he knew that wasn't true. But lying there with Kurt and wanting to just hold him-...it was new. It felt different and strange and inherently disconcerting, but at the same time so warm and comfortable that he couldn't disavow it - or even dislike it.

"You're quiet," Kurt pointed out with a soft smile.

"You keep me pretty occupied," Blaine replied, and Kurt's smile turned to a smirk that looked so momentarily wicked in the early evening twilight that Blaine had to laugh. "I'm not complaining," he added.

"I should hope not." Kurt's fingertips skimmed across his temple, brushing back the short hair just above his ear before stopping. "Blaine. Why in the world do you do this to yourself?" he asked, and Blaine's mind raced for a moment as he wondered what Kurt could mean. Of course he wondered why he did this to himself, why he let himself feel these things, why he didn't run like any sane person might, but for Kurt of all people to ask that- "The jingle says a dab will do ya, not the entire tube!" He flicked at the edge of Blaine's hair in annoyance and with a roll of his eyes. The hair barely moved - a fact that normally Blaine was grateful for. He spent more than his share of time each morning staring at the mirror and hoping and willing and praying his hair to do what he wanted it to do. He had spent what felt like eons trying to find the right hair product to tame his unnaturally naturally curly hair into a nice, slick, sideparted fashion. It went with the uniform, with the personae. The one that went to parties and smiled so broadly that no one believed it was fake, who tried to pretend he didn't have emotions beneath all the pressed wool jackets and perfectly-knotted ties.

Here with Kurt it felt wrong. Too stiff. Too fake.

But he couldn't exactly abandon it. After all, he would have to leave this room eventually, to leave this bed with the soft kisses and Kurt's fingers working frustratedly through his hair and the soulful wailings of female singers in the background. And when they left this room, he couldn't be this boy anymore; he would have to be that other guy. The one that at least passably survived in his father's house, the one who would get every accolade from Dalton faculty to secure a slot in a top university, the one who never complained and always smiled and felt like the future held nothing but death. Cold, robotic, rote interaction and death.

What was he supposed to do then?

They couldn't stay in his room forever, he knew that, and then what? He could turn off his emotions with the best of them, but he had no idea how to sit out there in class and not want this feeling, to not want Kurt.

You'll hear me say that I'm...so lucky to be lovin you...

Kurt did this thing where he would sing part of a line under his breath, as though unable to help himself. Blaine understood completely; there were times a feeling couldn't be summed up by words alone, and expressing it in song at least came closer. But the way Kurt would do it, then hesitate and blush and roll his eyes at himself as though he knew better but had done it anyway was the most adorable, endearing thing Blaine had ever seen.

He cupped Kurt's jaw in his palm, running his thumb slowly over Kurt's cheek, and Kurt's eyes fluttered closed as he let out a quiet sigh of contentment. "I wish we could just stay here," he murmured, and Kurt nodded against his hand. "Without any intrusion. Just us, you know?"

"Me too," Kurt replied softly. "It's so hard to pretend I don't want to touch you out there. These things you do to me," he added with a self-deprecating smile. "I never used to want to touch anyone. Now this is all I can think about." His voice was dreamy, awed even, and Blaine couldn't help himself from leaning in and kissing Kurt's lips gently. Kurt's torso shifted closer again, tucked tightly against him now, but not in an erotic way whatsoever.

"The same," Blaine whispered back. Kurt nodded again and they lay still for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of one song switching to another and the quiet chirp of birds outside. Spring was beginning to creep back from the depths of the snow-covered ground now, and the first few birds were beginning to reappear. It felt like years had passed since January; it was only March. It seemed like a century since he'd met Kurt - how had he known this boy so little time and yet felt like he couldn't imagine a time without him?

When did he become the type of boy who could be smitten with someone? Was that even what this was? It certainly felt like the movie soundtracks sounded.

What was he supposed to do in a few months? he wondered suddenly with alarm. How had he not even thought about it until now? He was graduating in only a few months, and Kurt had another year. And then what? What were they supposed to do when all of this ended in June? Go back to being the boy who tried to pretend to never care? Or become the robotic, empty shell of an adult that he would one day be required to turn into?

"Kurt?" he asked awkwardly, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to ask. This was a problem a lot of boys had with the girls they'd been going with, he knew that - he'd heard Wes lament that his girlfriend didn't want to go to Massachusetts with him, and David's girlfriend had gotten a scholarship to somewhere in Texas that he wouldn't in a million years set foot in. But they'd known each other such a short amount of time that even asking it felt absurd.

"Yes?"

"Do you ever think about...what we do next?"

"I was going to see about a movie," Kurt replied. "It was nice at that place. Though Rachel is trying to insist on coming along this time. I think she's just lonely out there with no one to tell her how great she is, but she keeps insisting that as her faux-boyfriend I still have a duty to take her out. But if you would rather go somewhere else, I'm all for it."

He wanted to tell Kurt that wasn't what he meant at all, that he wasn't worried about what to do next Friday, or the next Saturday, or the weekend after that. They could stay here and be like this, or if they had to move somewhere else he supposed the drive-in was nice enough and it was reassuring that others like them were there and not getting caught or telling anyone's secrets. He had enjoyed himself and suspected that would be the case even if Rachel tagged along - she wasn't nearly as bad as Kurt made her out to be, she was kind of amusing in her own quirky and super-intense way.

Next week wasn't what he was worried about.

What was he supposed to do when they had to leave this room and he had to go back to not noticing other boys? When he had to stop looking for Kurt's head bobbing head of him in the hallway? When he had to go back to being on all day, every day, all the time, because he wouldn't even have this tiny sliver of a safe-haven?

He was being ridiculous, he told himself; it had been barely a few weeks. Asking Kurt about the future now would be presumptuous and...what kind of future did they even have, anyway? Two boys out in the world together- that wasn't the future. That was what he could do until he had to grow up and lose his soul.

Just like he would have to one day give up music and emotion and feeling vibrantly alive, he would have to give up all this. Marry some nice girl, a daughter of a friend of a business associate of his father who came to a Christmas party and smiled charmingly enough. Step up and take responsibility for everything he was being entrusted with, everything his father had worked to provide.

It made him want to cry, but he didn't dare show it.

"Take Rachel out," Blaine instructed. They needed to get used to reality; he couldn't let himself forget about the world outside his room no matter how nice it would be. "I'm meant to call Jean anyway."

"No."

Kurt's sudden sharp tone as he pushed away from Blaine made him look up in surprise. Kurt sat up, legs dangling over the side of the bed, and looked back over his shoulder at Blaine with angry, frustrated, hurt eyes. "We're not doing that," he stated coldly.

"Kurt-"

"No, Blaine. If we're together, then we're together, and I understand why you're uncomfortable telling people that." The way he said 'uncomfortable' made him exponentially moreso, as though it were some sort of personal character flaw, a silly line he had drawn in the sand and refused to cross for no other reason than pride. Kurt was the only person Blaine knew who could wield his naivete like a weapon like that, launching it at those who knew better as though it was the well-informed person's fault for not just blindly trusting in it all. He sat up, crossing his arms over his chest, and shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not saying we have to be public about any of this. But I'm not going to be some secret you forget about when you want to feel normal again. If you want to date a girl, then I'm sorry, but we can't do this."

A momentary panic fluttered through him, the thought of losing Kurt almost physically painful to even contemplate. But he wasn't about to start begging. "What about you and Rachel?" he flung back, frustrated.

Kurt looked at him as though he'd lost his mind, eyebrows lowered in skepticism as he replied, "She knows what this is. She doesn't think we're going together, she knows the truth about me. What about Jean? Does she know?" he asked pointedly. His tone made clear he knew the answer to that.

Of course Jean didn't know. She would never know. He wasn't going to tell anyone - Rachel knew by accident, and of course Kurt knew, and if that was all the bigger the club got then he was more than happy to keep it that way. What was he supposed to say to her anyway? "I'm sorry, Jean, I really like you but I'm a homosexual and secretly in love with my best friend, Kurt. I'm sure you understand. I'll call you next week to see what our glee clubs can set up for once Regionals are over. It's been fun!" wasn't going to fly.

She would be hurt by it, and understandably so. And the warnings about women scorned existed for a reason. The last thing he needed would be for her to take out her revenge the best and easiest way she knew how: by telling people.

"Of course not," Blaine replied softly.

"Then it's different than Rachel and I. If Rachel comes out with us one weekend, her presence won't stop us from holding hands. If Jean comes out..." He let the sentence trail off, but Blaine understood what he meant.

It wasn't nearly as different as Kurt thought, but he wasn't sure how to break that to him. Both were about perception.

"I want to believe you're in this," Kurt stated quietly. His hands rested in his lap and he stared awkwardly at his fingers. "But if she's still in the picture, then you aren't. It's as simple as that."

It wasn't nearly that simple once they left the room, Blaine wanted to point out. It wasn't nearly that simple when they left the safety of his dorm, where they could be open and honest without fear of what that would expose them to. When they got into the halls of Dalton, let alone beyond the safe haven of campus and into the hostile, hate-filled world he had learned to fear practically from infancy...then what? What was he supposed to do when they were out in town and he couldn't let anyone know his secret? At least Kurt had Rachel if people started asking questions - what did he have?

But he didn't know if he could trade away this. Not without a damn good reason.

"So what do you want to do this weekend?" he asked finally. Kurt looked at him curiously, seeming to ask if he really meant what Kurt thought he might mean. He held out his hand, and Kurt shifted on the bed to more easily grasp it. "Are there any movies playing?"

* * * * *

Of the many problems with attending a school that required strict adherence to a uniform policy, the one Kurt found most obvious was this:

The longer he spent only being able to dream about his clothes instead of actually wearing them, the more outfits he planned out and desperately wanted to wear such that when the opportunity to wear something different presented itself, the task of narrowing down the field of contenders to just one outfit seemed impossible.

He knew logically that only Blaine and Rachel would see him. And of those two, Blaine was most used to seeing him in uniform and obviously didn't put too much stock in how he was dressed, and Rachel would wear something hideous that would make even one of his less-planned outfits seem chic by comparison. But he wanted to look perfect.

There weren't very many opportunities for Blaine to see him as him, as someone other than "Boy number 143 in that same uniform," and it was important to him that Blaine see all of him.

So the question quickly became, which ensemble most accurately and succinctly said "This is Kurt Hummel" while remaining relatively comfortable enough for the confines of the car. That it was still cold out, particularly at night, meant he was free to select from his several jackets, which made him happy, but there were too many choices for his shoes and that didn't even get into the question of which shirt or pants to wear - let alone accessories-

"What are you doing?" Sam asked from the desk as Kurt flicked frustratedly through the hangers in the closet.

"Trying to pick an outfit for tomorrow."

"You have a date or something?"

He did, Kurt thought with a grin. He did, he had a second date. A second date he thought he would never in a million years have considering how skittish Blaine was about all of this. A second date that Blaine had asked for, even.

A second date that Blaine had asked for instead of going out with Jean.

He was still trying not to get his hopes up. He was still trying to tell himself that he was expecting too much and seeing hope where there was none, but he had a hard time really ratcheting down his expectations when Blaine flat-out chose him over a girl.

"Yes," he replied simply. The benefit of Rachel going along, too, was that he wouldn't have to actually lie about any of it. He wondered if he should encourage Blaine in the direction of having a fake girlfriend, because there were advantages. It did make things simpler, he supposed, even if Rachel could be frustrating sometimes. She wasn't so bad - and it did make it nice to be able to talk to someone. Blaine deserved to have that, and since he couldn't talk to anyone at school - except him, of course - maybe it would be good for him

"What are you doing, anyway?" he asked Sam. "You said the tutoring made your homework take less time, but every time I see you you're still studying."

"What? Oh, no, this is..." Sam grinned and ducked his head, blushing a little behind his thick glasses. "Personal project."

"Oh?" Kurt asked, turning to look at him curiously. "Do tell."

He understood Sam said something about 'rockets' - beyond that, he wasn't sure he got any of it. Rockets and some design out of a movie and making it actually work by changing the angle of the fins and building models...and there was an impression in there somewhere of who Kurt suspected was the lead actor in the film, but he didn't ask.

It was good seeing Sam excited about something, but Kurt had his limits.

Sam was just starting into a description of the types of aliens the ship had carried when there was a loud, hurried knock at the door. As Kurt was closer, he strode over and opened it to find Wes and David outside, looking excited and just a little breathless, as though they'd run from across campus to deliver good news. "Yes?" he asked, wondering what in the world the two of them would have to possibly tell him. Council nominations weren't even due for another month and he didn't have nearly the clout - or temperament - for that position, so he knew it couldn't be that. If something were wrong, Wes wouldn't be smiling (and who knew that Wes smiled? Kurt was used to seeing him stone-faced). And on 99% of scenarios Kurt could come up with, Blaine would be the one coming to deliver the news.

"You went to McKinley, correct?" Wes asked.

"Right," Kurt replied slowly. None of the possible reasons they could be coming to see him involved that as the opening question.

"The news just broke in with a special report - something's going on," David stated, his words crisp with excitement.

"What do you mean?"

"We think it might be something about the lawsuit," Wes reported.

That got Kurt's attention. He hurried back into the room long enough to toe on his loafers, glad for the first time in his life for the simple footwear, and followed them quickly down the hall. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals had held oral arguments back sometime before Christmas, he knew that much and had been attempting to obtain a transcript but apparently those were not easily released to "disinterested parties." He had tried to point out the clerk - a rather polite gentleman who didn't sound much older than Kurt was, but who had continuously referred to Kurt as 'miss' during the course of their phone conversation - that anyone who had spent as much time calling and requesting the transcript clearly had at least some level of interest, but apparently it was a more specific legal term that the clerk refused to explain further. He wondered if one day the document would turn up in the Dalton Library, given its history of having random and obscure documents culled from sources without any rhyme or reason; he had a better chance of convincing the clerk of his interest than he did of the library getting it in a timely manner.

From what he could gather from his biweekly conversations with Mercedes, no one knew when a decision might come, but Kurt had assumed it would be like every other development in the case thus far: there would be a lead-up. When the decision to close the schools had first been announced, it came after weeks of tension and a series of violent nights wherein Mr. Jones had sent Mercedes and John to stay at the Hummels' because there was a legitimate fear of arson from a few of the obnoxious drunks who lived just outside town and liked to cause trouble. The announcement that McKinley would be closed for the year came after weeks of terse negotiations covered every night by the local news, with Asian parents lamenting that their children were being denied educational opportunities and white parents complaining about the moral decay of the town and black parents shown either milling around in the background as if they didn't care, or shouting from behind a police barricade as though they posed more threat than a wild animal. By the time both of those announcements came, everyone knew what was going on and had a sense of what was going to happen.

This...this was sudden. He wondered if maybe it was just because he'd been more than two hours away from home, but he suspected his dad would have mentioned something if it were starting to ramp up again. Or Mercedes, if she noticed things were getting more tense - sometimes it didn't even register with her because she was so used to it. Or Rachel would have said something, since she seemed to be paying even more attention to the proceedings than he was; whether it was out of a sense of justice or because she wanted to know how much longer she would have to wait before making her triumphant return to the McKinley stage, he wasn't sure.

He followed Wes and David quickly out of Everett House and next door to the Senior Student Room, the lounge housed on the first floor of the senior dorm which held the largest and newest of the four televisions on Dalton campus. Each class had one in their dorm's student room, but as Kurt had discovered circa October, the Juniors' television was small, got horrible reception, and always had at least ten boys crowded around it clamouring to watch one of the three channels. Not only was the Senior Student Room much nicer, it was nearly silent as all eyes fixed on the news report.

It was surreal to see people he knew on television. Finn had been on the local news once, interviewed before the Homecoming game his junior year, but they'd been at the game so they hadn't actually seen it. While Mercedes and her family weren't named parties in the case, he did know a few of the students standing up there. Mary had been Mercedes' lab partner in junior high, and there she was with an elegant coat over a dress, looking prim and put-together as she stood between her parents with a confused smile as though she knew she was meant to be happy but wasn't sure what had just happened. And there were a couple boys John had played basketball with, whom Kurt had met in passing a few times but not enough to know any of their names, in ties and overcoats and big grins. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder across the top step in front of the Federal Courthouse in Cincinnati, and even through the microphone it was easy to hear the commotion going on around them - screams and insults and cheers all rolled together in one ball of static noise that almost overpowered the speaker at the podium.

Kurt recognized the speaker from previous news stories. The Asian students had as their advocate a Japanese man who stood proudly and spoke as though he was giving a speech for a thousand people, but the attorney representing the black students was a decidedly less-elegant white man. Harlan Lowne looked to be in a constant state of frenzy, like he had too few assistants and was always struggling to keep up with his workload. Given the magnitude of the case he'd been trying, Kurt could imagine that might be the case. With wild white hair that never laid flat and neat as it should and a cheap suit, he looked nothing like the big-city lawyer one would have expected on a matter like this. Kurt knew he wasn't too local, he'd never met the man, but he wasn't based out of Columbus or Cincinnati either. A part of him had always wondered how this man came to be the face of something so important - a question that resurfaced as he watched Lowne grip the edges of the podium as if he was so nervous he might fall over.

But when he spoke, everything changed. He opened his mouth and sounded like the most flamboyant of trial attorneys, the sort of advocate who would stop at nothing to zealously defend his clients and the principles for which they stood, even if it meant resorting to shaming an entire community.

"Today," he said in a strong voice as full of pride as it was of exhaustion, "I am pleased to say that the rule of law has won out."

A cheer went up from the crowd, and the line of students and their parents behind him applauded behind him. Mary's mother looked relieved, eyes skyward as she mouthed praise to God for it being so.

That...that was good, then? Kurt wondered as he slipped onto an empty space at the end of the couch. A few students looked over curiously as though unsure why he was in the wrong Student Room, but Wes gave a quick shake of his head and the students shrugged and went back to watching. Apparently Warblers really could get away with anything.

It was hard to tell precisely who was cheering and who was shouting, but if Kurt had to judge based on looking at the faces behind Lowne, at the way the attorney seemed as though he was forcibly trying to keep a giant grin off his face, that had to mean-

They had won. They had won.

Was that even possible?

"In a unanimous opinion penned by Judge Patrick Sullivan, the Sixth Circuit has recognized the fundamental truth that Brown v. Board of Education is applicable to all public schools across this country - not even merely the schools that want to integrate, but each and every institution, from the depths of the segregationist South all the way to right here in Lima, Ohio." Kurt didn't care that technically they were in Cincinnati and Lima was nearly 4 hours away - he couldn't get past the fact that it was happening. Of course it should happen, but it should have happened all along. He'd jumped up and down with Mercedes over the ruling in the first place nearly five years ago, when what was becoming known as "Brown II" had been decided. Then they'd waited, then everything had started going downhill until now here they were and it was honestly and truly becoming a reality?

"This decision represents a victory not just for these young men and women behind me, but for all colored children in this state. It states-" He flipped through a thick packet of papers in front of him until he found the quote he was looking for. Kurt wondered how much time he'd had to even read the document. "'As the Supreme Court stated in Brown and affirmed in Cooper v. Aaron, and as we reaffirm today, the sum of one's educational opportunities is far greater than its parts - bricks and mortar alone do not make a school. Also inherent to a child's experience is another type of lesson: one of social rules, of interaction with one's peers, of where the child fits into the world. As was clearly demonstrated by the studies relied upon in Brown, where young colored children are told every day that they are not worthy of attendance at school with their white peers, then their sense of self, worth, and belonging are irreversibly damaged.' This decision affirms everything we have been saying since this case began: these children and their parents are not looking for anything special. They aren't seeking a single right beyond what their white counterparts at William McKinley High School have had: the right to attend a school where they can obtain not only the requisite knowledge but the motivation to make their way in the world. Given the sweeping nature of the Ohio Civil Rights Act signed into law just one year ago, I would say that this benefits the white students as well - where better to learn to get along in a world of many races?"

Kurt's head was spinning. Of course they were right, the man was saying everything he'd been saying since he had sat in his room the summer of 1956 and read the entire Brown decision (all the while wishing he had a legal dictionary of some kind) to figure out when that meant he and Mercedes got to go to the same school. And even though Mercedes let a lot of it roll off her back, maybe more than she should, he felt-

It was stupid, maybe, but he felt like he understood.

He knew the way he was treated was nothing like the way Mercedes was treated; he knew that no amount of strange looks and disgusted shakes of the head could ever compare to the fact that Mercedes was flat-out barred from going into certain restaurants, or that her dad's practice could barely stay afloat sometimes because of how many people in their town were terrified of having their teeth examined by a man who wasn't white. They weren't the same thing.

But sometimes it felt the same. Especially when he looked at people like Blaine - Blaine who was so convinced that he had to be wrong because it was all he'd ever been told, day in and day out from god-only-knew what age. Six months ago, had he known about himself what he knew now, he would've said there was no way that there would ever be a time or place where boys like him could be treated equally or told they weren't perverse or inverted or whatever other phrase one might use.

But then, six months ago he would also have said that there wouldn't be a place like this. That, even though he knew Mercedes being black didn't matter and that all the rest was just prejudice, other people would never understand it the way he did.

As he looked around the Student Room, though, and saw all of these boys - of every colour, side-by-side, honestly not seeing why Wes, David, and Thad "shouldn't" all be together on Council...they were looking at each other with the same sort of pitying, confused look usually reserved for news reports of the poor people of Soviet Russia who couldn't buy the things they needed, or the native people of undeveloped countries in their funny costumes in National Geographic. Who were these people in Lima who needed to be told that people were equal? How funny it would be if it weren't so sad. What sort of backwards tribe were they to not know something so basic and simple?

As Lowne finished his speech, reporters began clamouring for attention. The first person called-on asked the question that was on everyone's minds - especially Kurt's: "So what will happen now?"

"Well," Lowne said with an exhausted grin, as though the only thing he could think about was finally getting to sleep a full night now that the process was over. "The City of Lima of course has the option to appeal, but considering the fact that the United States Supreme Court has settled this question of law pretty firmly over the past six years, most recently in the case out of Virginia last year, I would think that would be a waste of everyone's time and money. Assuming they let the ruling stand, which I believe would be wise under the circumstances-" There was a chuckle across the crowd: of course the attorney for the students would think that the city would be wise not to appeal a ruling in the students' favour. "-then today's decision makes it pretty clear. The Court in Brown said that desegregation must occur 'with all deliberate speed,' and it's been almost five years now. So the decision orders the City of Lima to reopen all public schools, fully integrated, immediately."

Kurt's eyes widened. Was that the end of it then? Did that mean-...they were back to everything they'd planned, just a year late?

It felt almost too good to believe, but he wasn't about to take the fantastic news for granted.

Almost breathless and unable to keep the grin off his face, he jumped up and hurried toward the door. Blaine had slipped in sometime after Kurt had, and he stood near the wall just barely inside the room. "Hey!" he whispered, cognizant of the fact that everyone else was watching the broadcast. "Did you hear?" When Blaine nodded that he had, an almost-stunned look on his face, Kurt just beamed even more broadly. Blaine could be as pessimistic as he wanted, but he had won. They had won. And one day, he would convince Blaine that just like the people in his town had been wrong about Mercedes and would have to move past it whether they liked it or not, people would one day see them as something other than sick, dangerous creatures.

The world could change. It was already changing, and there were so many possibilities.

Clapping his hands together in excitement, he added a quick, "I have to go call Mercedes" before hurrying back toward Everett House. He couldn't wait to get her on the phone and jump about the ruling long-distance.

Then they had plans to make. He wondered if it was too early to start selecting her audition number for glee club.